The crew chiefs watched their crewmembers get ready. Suddenly one of the RF-111Gs, the Sortie Six airplane, began taxiing out of its shelter. Harcourt stood in front of his shelter, waiting for the taxi light to come on his bomber. A second bomber taxied out of the shelter. Then he saw his crewmembers take off their helmets and slip something over their heads that he couldn’t quite make out before replacing their helmets. Then they clipped something onto the outside of their helmets.
They were PLZT goggles — electronic flashblindness goggles. The other thing they put on under their helmets must’ve been eyepatches for use in case the electronic goggles failed or if it was too dark to use the goggles. The crew chiefs had had briefings on them and had seen them demonstrated once, but they were never to be used …
… unless it was the real thing.
With the goggles and oxygen masks in place, Harcourt and Alena looked like two Darth Vaders sitting in the Vampire cockpit. Harcourt turned on the taxi light, signaling he was ready to taxi. The crew chief kept his arms crossed above his head until the second RF-111 bomber taxied past, then motioned Harcourt to move forward, and they taxied clear of the shelter and onto the parallel runway.
Standing in the dark, freezing cold night, with the roar of six nuclear-loaded RF-111s bombarding him, the Sortie Two crew chief saluted the pilot. The eerie death mask turned toward him, looked at the lone figure for a moment, then slowly returned the salute — possibly for the last time.
THIRTY-FOUR
“What the hell do you mean, it was a leaflet drop?” the President thundered. “You mean to tell me the Russians flew a supersonic bomber right over Turkey, in broad daylight, right over the base where the American planes had just landed, and dropped leaflets …?”
“That’s exactly what they did, Mr. President,” General Freeman acknowledged. They, along with the First Lady and their young daughter; the National Security Advisor, Michael Lifter; two Secret Service agents; and a Navy captain assigned to carry the “football,” the briefcase with the codes necessary to execute the nation’s nuclear forces, were standing in the pouring rain on the west lawn of the White House, just a few yards away from the whirling blades of Marine One. The large VH-53 helicopter had flown out to retrieve the President and members of the National Security Council when the latest alert was sounded. Seconds earlier, Freeman had received word that no attack was in progress, and the group, now drenched, was heading back into the White House.
The President did not go to the Situation Room, but made his way back to the Oval Office instead. He threw his wet raincoat into a corner and ordered coffee and sandwiches. The First Lady entered the Oval Office a few minutes later with her hair dry and wearing a business suit — it had to be the fastest cleanup in history — and stood beside her husband. “I would like to know,” she said crisply, her hands balled into tight fists at her side, “what in hell is going on here? General Freeman, getting chased out of the White House twice in just a few days on a false alarm is not my idea of fun.”
“It was no false alarm, ma’am,” Freeman said, swallowing hard, shifting from one foot to the other. To the President, he said, “I’ve got the intelligence branch on their way over for a briefing, sir.”
“All right,” the President drawled wearily. He stood by his chair, his fingers pressing into the brown leather back, taking a few deep breaths, then swung the chair around and sat down heavily. “Something in North America or Europe, Philip?”
“Europe, sir, over Turkey,” Freeman replied. “Attack warning. There was no reason why the leadership-evacuation warning was sounded. I’ll check into that personally.”
The Navy captain with the nuclear codes followed along and unobtrusively took a seat in the corner of the room, the case open on a table beside his chair, a cord running from the briefcase to a wall outlet. He then stood and approached the President, waiting for an opportunity to speak. “Captain Ahrens would like to activate your code card, sir,” Freeman told the President.
“What for?”
“Sir, we should establish full connectivity with the National Military Command Center immediately,” Freeman explained. “When the Russian aircraft were detected on what appeared to be a bomb run, we transmitted a taxi-to-the-hold-line message to the bombers and a standby-to-launch message to the Peacekeeper missiles and submarines.”
The Steel Magnolia’s mouth dropped open in shock — it looked like the President’s was about to as well.
“Under these circumstances, the next order would most likely be issued from the portable unit. Since there’s still a possibility that an attack against the United States is underway, you should activate the portable sender.”
“I told you before, General, I don’t want those bombers to launch!”
“Sir …” Freeman paused, controlling his emotions and his own shaking voice, cursing the day he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. At least Colin Powell got out while the getting was good. “Sir, activating your portable sender doesn’t issue any orders — it only allows you to be able to do so, should we need to make a run for the helicopter again. At this point, Strategic Command will determine whether or not the bombers launch under positive control. They—”
“What … did you say, General Freeman?” the First Lady interrupted. “Strategic Command can launch the bombers? What are you talking about? What do you mean they can launch? Is this some kind of coup?” She turned to the President. “I’m telling you, this smells like Seven Days in May.”
“Dammit, ma’am,” Freeman snapped, “under DEFCON Two, we would launch the bomber force under positive control as soon as we detected an attack in progress against the United States. That’s what DEFCON Two means. Because of the nature of the current emergency and your orders regarding protection for our NATO allies, we decided we would launch the bomber force if any attack against any NATO ally, especially Turkey, was detected.”
“A policy I totally disagree with,” the First Lady said disdainfully, rapping on Jack Kennedy’s old desk. “We’re supposed to make the world and the Russians think we’ll start a nuclear war if Turkey is attacked?”
“We already discussed this, honey,” the President interjected, trying to calm her, wishing he could take a job at McDonald’s or somewhere — anywhere but here. “We’ve got American servicemen in Turkey; Turkey is a strong and valuable ally — it’s important we show our support—”
“By starting World War Three? It’s insane,” she lectured, her lip curled.
The President hesitated. They had indeed argued this point for many hours, with the First Lady not wanting to commit to war with Russia over Turkey and its unilateral decision to assist the Ukraine. She had a point, Freeman thought: world wars were indeed started exactly like this. But the NATO alliance was important to America. Every member — especially its most powerful member, the United States of America — had to back up the others. The single RF-111G recon unit and a few frigates was a paltry show of support — launching the nuclear alert bombers was a major show of support. It was a safe and fully controllable response as well — unlike a missile, the bombers could be recalled at any time.